PETA Condemns Pokemon For Promoting Animal Abuse 418
SchrodingerZ writes "PETA, the same group that last November protested Mario for 'wearing fur,' has condemned the Pokémon media franchise and video game series. In light of the recent release of Pokemon Black and White Versions 2, the activist group is protesting that the Pokemon game series 'paints a rosy picture of what amounts to thinly veiled animal abuse.' As many of us know Pokemon is about young children who capture wild animals for the sole purpose of having them battle in non-fatal sparing matches. 'Much like animals in the real world, Pokémon are treated as unfeeling objects and used for such things as human entertainment and as subjects in experiments. The way that Pokémon are stuffed into pokéballs is similar to how circuses chain elephants inside railroad cars and let them out only to perform confusing and often painful tricks that were taught using sharp steel-tipped bullhooks and electric shock prods,' says a statement from the group. Ironically within Pokemon B/W 2 there an organization known as Team Plasma , which deals with taking Pokemon and retuning them to the wild. PETA is so up in arms that they have even created an anti-pokemon parody game in which you play as an escaped Pokemon battling your trainer. I recommend trying it, just for the laughs."
1999 called and wants its headline back (Score:5, Insightful)
Trolls (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fucking Retarded (Score:0, Insightful)
I don't like to be a jerk on the internet, but you saying this is retarded reveals that you're an idiot.
PETA doesn't think Pokemon encourages animal cruelty or that Pokemons should be entitled to better living conditions blah blah blah the point of these campaigns is to latch on to something with high visibility & popularity (Mario, Pokemon, etc) to make a media splash, get idiots like you to engage with it (positively or negatively) and in the end watch their video about real animals.
TL;DR: It's not about Pokemons, also don't say the word retarded, ya damn retard
"Wearing fur"? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean damn PETA come on, this is why people start thinking you're just a bunch of nutjobs....
Re:Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I think PETA exists solely . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
The "Westboro Baptist Church" style of marketing? You're actually probably a lot more right than you know. Groups like this stay relevant by generating ever more insane news clips. Oh sure, they probably believe (most of them, anyways) their basic message, but they do and say the really stupid stuff like this because it gets them noticed. And they thrive on attention. They're like children throwing temper tantrums (probably with the same level of maturity). The absolute worst thing you can do to them, and the best thing you can do for society, is to studiously ignore them. It might get worse for a while, but it will be vastly better once they learn that saying things like this won't get them noticed.
Of course, I live in a country where the Kardashians are popular, so that'll never happen.
Re:I dont know why PETA want cows extinct? (Score:4, Insightful)
but that's exactly what is happening, we've been cooking those bovine for hundreds of thousands of years. we are their predators. it's natural, it's right.
No, not funny, boring. (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, people, why is this story even here? PETA shits out a turd like this once a week. And Slashdot has given them exactly what they wanted.
Blaziken and Houndoom (Score:4, Insightful)
Are battles like cockfights?
Whether battles are like cockfights or like dogfights depends on whether you've brought a Blaziken or a Houndoom.
Re:I think PETA exists solely . . . (Score:4, Insightful)
But being a target for hate is a valid role, albeit a rather painful one. People expend their vitriol on PETA and other animals rights groups wind up looking better by comparison. "Hey," they say, "we're not PETA. You can talk to us and consider our suggestions rather than just dismissing them out of hand." Ultimately, partly thanks to PETA acting as lightning rod, the goal is furthered.
In my experience it's just the opposite. You approach someone as being interested in animals rights/welfare, and immediately get, "Oh, like those nutbars who think fish are sea kittens." Then you've got to try and convince them that you're not like PETA, and defining yourself by what you're not never works. Consciously or sub-consciously, they think, "You wouldn't need to deny it if there wasn't some truth to it."
PETA don't act as a lightning rod to draw away hatred, they act as a copper dome all of us, drawing in hatred.
Re:Fucking Retarded (Score:2, Insightful)
The last time I had a conversation with my cat is this evening. If you mean direct, two-way, verbal communication, it was this morning. Her food bowl was empty, which she told me, by mewing and physically showing me what she was mewing about. She free-feeds, and sometimes it isn't empty, and she doesn't typically mew and go to her food bowl when it's not empty; when she does, something else is wrong and she knows that is a way to prompt attention.
Generally, the response I get to these sorts of scenarios is that I'm projecting and I can't adequately judge a non-human animal's attention without human language (which, by the way, begs the question). But this sort of reasoning easily devolves all the way to cogito ergo sum: nothing can be truly known but what's in your mind. What a hopelessly chaotic worldview. My cat and I communicate, sometimes with mistakes just as with human-human communication. But it shows an enormous lack of experience or empathy to believe that non-human animal sentience doesn't exist.
Re:No, not funny, boring. (Score:5, Insightful)
And Slashdot has given them exactly what they wanted.
A collective, "wtf is wrong with you people"? That doesn't seem like a well considered strategy.
Re:Animal abusers are sick. (Score:4, Insightful)
How someone treats another living thing when that living thing is powerless to
defend itself is a very good test of the mental wellness of that person.
Anyone who thinks it is "ok" or "cool" to abuse animals needs to be removed
from society.
And all you little jerkoffs who think all this is something to joke about
need your nuts kicked so hard they come out the top of your little dickeating
skulls.
.
The ability to tell the difference between a fantasy game and reality "is a very good test of the mental wellness of that person."
People who think other humans should have their "nuts kicked so hard they come out the top of your little dickeating
skulls...need to be removed from society."
FTFY
Re:I think PETA exists solely . . . (Score:3, Insightful)
This is just false. At best it's ridiculously naive, and at worse, it encourages animal cruelty.
If you self-identify as having any specific concern for animal welfare, you first have to jump the PETA hurdle. They're a severe detriment to their own supposed cause, and everyone else with similar interests. Many of those other folks really are rational, decent people.
As such, a dollar donated to PETA is a dollar donated in support of animal neglect and abuse. There's no way around it.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Funny (Score:5, Insightful)
No they do NOT stand a chance in the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
People forget what PETA really stands for. They want ALL animals to be free, includings pets such as cats, since "owning" a cat is abuse in their eyes.
If you wanted to show the American voter is willing to go that far, you would show laws aimed at REALLY protecting kids most dangerous enemy, the average driver. You don't. The greatest child killer in the USA goes free and unchecked.
People are willing to do a lot of meaningless things to feel good but they won't do anything real. That is why PETA will fail.
And as a cat owner, good riddance to them.
Re:No they do NOT stand a chance in the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
PETA is not an organization that loves animals.
They have repeatedly demonstrated that, via various acts that have been harmful and frequently fatal to the very animals they were "rescuing". They operate under the assumption that (despite daily evidence to the contrary) that animals fear and despise humans universally and unconditionally. This isn't even true for wild animals, much less domesticated ones. One of the biggest problems the filmers of the "March of the Penguins" documentary had was that the penguins kept wanting to socialize with the people who were trying to film them. In Alaska, wolves have been recorded bring their pup to the side of the highway for no apparent reason other than for people to admire them. Even skunks have shown a preference for living around humans on occasion.
PETA is an organization that hates humans. The animals are just a justification. If they really loved animals, they'd do their homework and learn what the animals themselves really want.